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Some background info on me first, since it's important to this review.

I told the Witch Doctor I was in love with you...

Oh wait...wrong info. WHOOPSIE DAISIES moving on...

So I've been a fan of FFVII since I got it. Am I a die-hard? Hell no, but it's still a good game with a strong story and characters who revolutionized the humanity that Square would from there on treat their characters with. I loved the characters, each and every one of them. Nanaki and Aerith were amongst my favourites, and I'll admit that I wasn't overly fond of Cloud. I did like that he evolved through the story, but even in the end he seemed too depressed of a character to really appeal to me, but that's just me. But the most appealing part of the game was the story and how the characters played through it: each one had struggles and histories that had a great deal of bearing on their current position in life. In my view, Square would go on to master this in FFIX, where the backstories actually affected the plotline, but that's not really the point of this so MOVING ON AGAIN.

So that's a little background info on me and Final Fantasy VII. So we arrive at Advent Children...and I was pissed. Not because the action scenes were crap - they were fucking awesome. A bit over-the-top, but this is Final Fantasy and we're to expect that sort of thing. It's not because Nanaki only got ONE GODS-DAMNED FUCKING LINE IN THE WHOLE FILM YOU RETARDED BASTARDS okay getting a bit worked up here...

No, the main reason I don't find Advent Children to be a good film is because of its lack of story and the plot holes that make Swiss cheese look whole. Did I enjoy the film? I did, I guess. It was a 'fun' film, meant solely for fan-service. I mean come on...was the whole One-Winged Angel affirmation really necessary? But regardless of whether I enjoyed it or not, I very much disliked it.

The characters in VII had evolved over the course of the game. Yet that all seemed to go to hell in this film. Where was the development that Cloud went through in VII? Yes, in AC, Cloud was emo. And he didn't do jack shit to pull himself out of it, which was what made the struggle in VII at least semi-believable. Yes, in VII Cloud relied on friends to help him, but in the end it was him who had to work through years of psychological re-working to finally face the truth. This time? A few people tell him some stuff and he effectively has an "Oh shit, I acted like a prick, sorry now let me go kick some ass." There was no development in the character, in any of the characters!

In my view, characters are the most important aspect of the story, and that's probably because I have a looser definition of a character than most. Characters, to me, are prominent figures that have positive or negative relations with one another and generally significant impact on the decisions of other characters. As you can see, my definition of character could embody music or magic as easily as an actual person. If something is prominent in the story and affects more than just a few small things, then it tends to be a character. Nature can be as much a character as a living, breathing creature, though it does not necessarily have to develop.

So, as you can tell, Cloud does not actually fit the bill of a character, much less a good character, for which I have very stringent measures. He bordered on a good character in VII, but in here I see nothing in the way of development or influence. Granted, he has issues that he is dealing with; now that the world is relatively at peace and is rebuilding after the Meteor Crisis, so at this point he gets the chance to deal with said issues. This could have made a most amazing film: we finally get to see a recovering Cloud, complete with romantic relations, a demon of the past, and real inner turmoil.

But no. He does no dealing. He simply runs. And really, the only reason he stops running is because his friends nag the fuck out of him. Forgiveness from Aerith? Yes! THAT COULD HAVE BEEN FUCKING GREAT IF YOU'D BEEN A LITTLE MORE DAMN SUBTLE ABOUT IT!

I'd like to say at this point that the writers of this story obviously haven't a clue about real-life issues, but I can't, because I would assume at their age they would at least be able to empathize with some of these things that they insist on putting their characters through. However, I see very little of that. Cloud has lingering guilt? Oh, let him obsess over it, because that's obviously what every person who feels responsible for the death of a loved one does. Cloud contracts a disease? Have him hide it because he is a loner, even though he clearly learned to rely on and trust his friends with his life last time. It's not like he knows they'd help him, or at least try to.

As you can see, this problem lies with the fact that they treat the character of Cloud with such little dignity that I don't see how they could have thought they were telling a story about him. They were telling a story alright, but because Cloud did nothing about his own problem at any point in time, it's less a story about him and more a story about Kadaj, one of the few characters who saw what he wanted and actually went for it.

So, you might wonder, why am I bitching about Cloud and not the others? Well, that's mainly because there's nothing for me to bitch about. It's not that there's nothing wrong with them - there is, but it's that fact that they're so hollow, so impossibly one-dimensional, that to complain about them would take more time than the Earth has left to live. The fact of the matter is that they commited the cardinal sin of storytelling: they focused the story around a single character and the only thing we see from the other characters are the points in which they are doing something with or relating to the main character. Think about it:

Tifa and Marlene's scene at the church? Discovering Cloud was ill.

Vincent's scene in the Forgotten City? Basically telling Cloud to stop being a mopey chicken-shit and to get off his ass and do something.

In come the group to fight of this weird insectoid Bahamut? Nah, they ain't gonna kill it, just make no progress until Cloud gets there and basically kills the thing with one swing.

I could go on and on...but we'll be here for a while, and I don't know about you lot, but I have a career that I would like to pursue. The fact of the matter is that they turned Cloud into a Mary Sue. Before he was just complex - not deep, but admittedly complex - whereas now he is so violated that it hurts for me to admit him to be a character.

Now I will admit that I found the character of Kadaj to be intriguing, though I didn't exactly like him. That Jenova or Sephiroth (don't really care which) had found yet another way to perpetuate itself aroused my curiousity. And I'll be honest, I thought that he was a character that could have had potential. But like the other characters, he really only existed so that Cloud could kick ass and unleash Sephiroth then get his ass kicked and pull an Ass-Pull civtory at the end. That he considered himself to be a brother to the "black sheep" of his kind was a strong metaphor that embodied that which quite frankly is a very real issue: living in the shadow of one who is both your equal and your opposite, and having perceived familial relations with that person. But they simply put the character in there, again, as a means to Cloud's end.

Now, onto something besides characters. Yes, I noticed more about the movie than the bloody idiotic characterization.

The other really noticeable thing for me was the colouring. For the most part, I loved the look of the film - at the time it was so crisp and detailed, I was in awe. Some things bugged me, like making A FUCKING DRAGON SUMMON INTO AN OVERSIZED INSECT, but what bugged me the most was the grey.

I don't mean the grey settings like the city, I mean that everything looked as though it had been fogged over and then had a transparency tool taken to the fog, while still keeping the greying effect. The colours were so played down - when Nanaki's tail lets out the glow equivalent to a candlestick, you know something is wrong - that even the uplifting and well-choreographed (right word there?) scenes were drab and almost depressing. Even in Aerith's church, during that fight between Tifa and Loz, everything was like it was enveloped in some sort of weird fog that could be seen through, and that was really distracting for me. I loved the colours from the game - there were brilliant palettes for the different settings - and moving from VII to this was...depressing.

So I've bitched about the film enough to make a baby cry, what did I see good in it?

Well, the action was kinda fun. Though I would gladly sacrifice much of the action for some actual story (and be aware: this is a GUY talking, and I would take explosions over chick-flicks any day), but I'll admit that the action we got was usually very intense, and I liked that. Unrealistic and over-the-top, yes, but goddamn it after what they did in VII why shouldn't Tifa be able to land like a spider on a wall and stay there? SCREW THE RULES OF PHYSICS, WE HAVE MONEY!

I did like some of the background story, the stuff that didn't so totally revolve around Cloud, like how Aerith is working even in the Lifestream to make the world right, or how the whole Geostigma was merely Sephiroth/Jenova (again, don't care which) queening its pawns so it could eradicate the chessboard.

Otherwise, I didn't really like the film. I enjoyed it well enough, if only because the action scenes were really epic in how they were played out, but being who I am I cannot say that I liked it one smidge. There was too much fanservice and character raping. Oh, and did I mention that they GAVE NANAKI THE FUCKING SHAFT?! Goddamn it

Anyways, that's my two cents (or 20 won) for those who care to read. I wasn't impressed critically, though the explosion-loving guy in me did enjoy it. AC falls short for me for the same reason that most slasher films and Twilight falls short: its creators simply didn't think about the story as a serious entity, viewing it instead as a cash cow, otherwise why would they have relied so heavily on Tifa's boobs I MEAN fanservice?

Some background info on me first, since it's important to this review.

I told the Witch Doctor I was in love with you...

Oh wait...wrong info. WHOOPSIE DAISIES moving on...

So I've been a fan of FFVII since I got it. Am I a die-hard? Hell no, but it's still a good game with a strong story and characters who revolutionized the humanity that Square would from there on treat their characters with. I loved the characters, each and every one of them. Nanaki and Aerith were amongst my favourites, and I'll admit that I wasn't overly fond of Cloud. I did like that he evolved through the story, but even in the end he seemed too depressed of a character to really appeal to me, but that's just me. But the most appealing part of the game was the story and how the characters played through it: each one had struggles and histories that had a great deal of bearing on their current position in life. In my view, Square would go on to master this in FFIX, where the backstories actually affected the plotline, but that's not really the point of this so MOVING ON AGAIN.

So that's a little background info on me and Final Fantasy VII. So we arrive at Advent Children...and I was pissed. Not because the action scenes were crap - they were fucking awesome. A bit over-the-top, but this is Final Fantasy and we're to expect that sort of thing. It's not because Nanaki only got ONE GODS-DAMNED FUCKING LINE IN THE WHOLE FILM YOU RETARDED BASTARDS okay getting a bit worked up here...

No, the main reason I don't find Advent Children to be a good film is because of its lack of story and the plot holes that make Swiss cheese look whole. Did I enjoy the film? I did, I guess. It was a 'fun' film, meant solely for fan-service. I mean come on...was the whole One-Winged Angel affirmation really necessary? But regardless of whether I enjoyed it or not, I very much disliked it.

The characters in VII had evolved over the course of the game. Yet that all seemed to go to hell in this film. Where was the development that Cloud went through in VII? Yes, in AC, Cloud was emo. And he didn't do jack shit to pull himself out of it, which was what made the struggle in VII at least semi-believable. Yes, in VII Cloud relied on friends to help him, but in the end it was him who had to work through years of psychological re-working to finally face the truth. This time? A few people tell him some stuff and he effectively has an "Oh shit, I acted like a prick, sorry now let me go kick some ass." There was no development in the character, in any of the characters!

In my view, characters are the most important aspect of the story, and that's probably because I have a looser definition of a character than most. Characters, to me, are prominent figures that have positive or negative relations with one another and generally significant impact on the decisions of other characters. As you can see, my definition of character could embody music or magic as easily as an actual person. If something is prominent in the story and affects more than just a few small things, then it tends to be a character. Nature can be as much a character as a living, breathing creature, though it does not necessarily have to develop.

So, as you can tell, Cloud does not actually fit the bill of a character, much less a good character, for which I have very stringent measures. He bordered on a good character in VII, but in here I see nothing in the way of development or influence. Granted, he has issues that he is dealing with; now that the world is relatively at peace and is rebuilding after the Meteor Crisis, so at this point he gets the chance to deal with said issues. This could have made a most amazing film: we finally get to see a recovering Cloud, complete with romantic relations, a demon of the past, and real inner turmoil.

But no. He does no dealing. He simply runs. And really, the only reason he stops running is because his friends nag the fuck out of him. Forgiveness from Aerith? Yes! THAT COULD HAVE BEEN FUCKING GREAT IF YOU'D BEEN A LITTLE MORE DAMN SUBTLE ABOUT IT!

I'd like to say at this point that the writers of this story obviously haven't a clue about real-life issues, but I can't, because I would assume at their age they would at least be able to empathize with some of these things that they insist on putting their characters through. However, I see very little of that. Cloud has lingering guilt? Oh, let him obsess over it, because that's obviously what every person who feels responsible for the death of a loved one does. Cloud contracts a disease? Have him hide it because he is a loner, even though he clearly learned to rely on and trust his friends with his life last time. It's not like he knows they'd help him, or at least try to.

As you can see, this problem lies with the fact that they treat the character of Cloud with such little dignity that I don't see how they could have thought they were telling a story about him. They were telling a story alright, but because Cloud did nothing about his own problem at any point in time, it's less a story about him and more a story about Kadaj, one of the few characters who saw what he wanted and actually went for it.

So, you might wonder, why am I bitching about Cloud and not the others? Well, that's mainly because there's nothing for me to bitch about. It's not that there's nothing wrong with them - there is, but it's that fact that they're so hollow, so impossibly one-dimensional, that to complain about them would take more time than the Earth has left to live. The fact of the matter is that they commited the cardinal sin of storytelling: they focused the story around a single character and the only thing we see from the other characters are the points in which they are doing something with or relating to the main character. Think about it:

Tifa and Marlene's scene at the church? Discovering Cloud was ill.

Vincent's scene in the Forgotten City? Basically telling Cloud to stop being a mopey chicken-shit and to get off his ass and do something.

In come the group to fight of this weird insectoid Bahamut? Nah, they ain't gonna kill it, just make no progress until Cloud gets there and basically kills the thing with one swing.

I could go on and on...but we'll be here for a while, and I don't know about you lot, but I have a career that I would like to pursue. The fact of the matter is that they turned Cloud into a Mary Sue. Before he was just complex - not deep, but admittedly complex - whereas now he is so violated that it hurts for me to admit him to be a character.

Now I will admit that I found the character of Kadaj to be intriguing, though I didn't exactly like him. That Jenova or Sephiroth (don't really care which) had found yet another way to perpetuate itself aroused my curiousity. And I'll be honest, I thought that he was a character that could have had potential. But like the other characters, he really only existed so that Cloud could kick ass and unleash Sephiroth then get his ass kicked and pull an Ass-Pull civtory at the end. That he considered himself to be a brother to the "black sheep" of his kind was a strong metaphor that embodied that which quite frankly is a very real issue: living in the shadow of one who is both your equal and your opposite, and having perceived familial relations with that person. But they simply put the character in there, again, as a means to Cloud's end.

Now, onto something besides characters. Yes, I noticed more about the movie than the bloody idiotic characterization.

The other really noticeable thing for me was the colouring. For the most part, I loved the look of the film - at the time it was so crisp and detailed, I was in awe. Some things bugged me, like making A FUCKING DRAGON SUMMON INTO AN OVERSIZED INSECT, but what bugged me the most was the grey.

I don't mean the grey settings like the city, I mean that everything looked as though it had been fogged over and then had a transparency tool taken to the fog, while still keeping the greying effect. The colours were so played down - when Nanaki's tail lets out the glow equivalent to a candlestick, you know something is wrong - that even the uplifting and well-choreographed (right word there?) scenes were drab and almost depressing. Even in Aerith's church, during that fight between Tifa and Loz, everything was like it was enveloped in some sort of weird fog that could be seen through, and that was really distracting for me. I loved the colours from the game - there were brilliant palettes for the different settings - and moving from VII to this was...depressing.

So I've bitched about the film enough to make a baby cry, what did I see good in it?

Well, the action was kinda fun. Though I would gladly sacrifice much of the action for some actual story (and be aware: this is a GUY talking, and I would take explosions over chick-flicks any day), but I'll admit that the action we got was usually very intense, and I liked that. Unrealistic and over-the-top, yes, but goddamn it after what they did in VII why shouldn't Tifa be able to land like a spider on a wall and stay there? SCREW THE RULES OF PHYSICS, WE HAVE MONEY!

I did like some of the background story, the stuff that didn't so totally revolve around Cloud, like how Aerith is working even in the Lifestream to make the world right, or how the whole Geostigma was merely Sephiroth/Jenova (again, don't care which) queening its pawns so it could eradicate the chessboard.

Otherwise, I didn't really like the film. I enjoyed it well enough, if only because the action scenes were really epic in how they were played out, but being who I am I cannot say that I liked it one smidge. There was too much fanservice and character raping. Oh, and did I mention that they GAVE NANAKI THE FUCKING SHAFT?! Goddamn it

Anyways, that's my two cents (or 20 won) for those who care to read. I wasn't impressed critically, though the explosion-loving guy in me did enjoy it. AC falls short for me for the same reason that most slasher films and Twilight falls short: its creators simply didn't think about the story as a serious entity, viewing it instead as a cash cow, otherwise why would they have relied so heavily on Tifa's boobs I MEAN fanservice?

EDIT: ...Holy fuck, that was longer than I expected. CARRY ON PEOPLE NOTHING TO SEE HERE oh shit they already saw it... *disappears with his own smiley*

lol you wrote too much for me to read all of it but in all honesty i do get what you are saying... if you have only seen the original FFVII AC try the AC Complete cause it was supposed to fill in the rest of the blanks that they put in... they supposedly put in more of a story and everything

I felt the film couldve been more. We didnt get to see many characters i agree...but we didnt even get to see how kadaj and his gang came to be. They spawned out of nowhere spreading this new desease. The action i thought couldve been more. Even for the blu ray version, the story still lacked a bit.

The characters were nicely designed but the action and character development was lacking. They still pushed that mysterious side of cloud that bugs me. Never talking out his past....at least explain it to denzel a lil more since he's a new character.

I can write a review that is fresh in my mind because I actually watched Advent Children Complete last night once again. But before I go into that, I remember when they announced doing this fan movie. I picked up the original back in like 2005-6. I loved it, the animations were great, the action was great and the pacing and character development as good and easy to follow.

I still remember wanting more things explained lik Denzel for one who spontaneously came out of the blue, but then I finally got a blu-ray player and my first purchase was the complete edition. First thing I loved? The fact they had placed an anime short about how Denzel came to be which is what i thought really fleshed out his character.

The edition of 30 minutes of extra footage is easily noticable and the story made more sense and flowed much better. We saw more character development with Cloud, we had a better finale fight between him and Sepheroith. More action scenes being added, it was all great.

They still missed the opportunity to develop the group and explain Kadaj and the others arrival but I mean when is a movie perfect these days. FFVII:ACC is by far the better product, it still may lack some character development and a better arcing story. But it is a fun action driven movie that puts all your favourite band of characters on the tv screen and I might say in some amazing CGI.

Well, tonight I finally got around to watching this movie, and fortunately I was able to watch the Complete version as well.

My immediate thoughts on the movie are:

Pros:-Lots of great action sequences
-Amazing visual effects that are still up to date several years later
-More to VII's story with lots of well-done tie ins
-Tifa

Cons:-Not much story--action sequences occupy the vast majority of the film
-Some of the action is a bit too fast, making it easy to lose track of what's going on

Overall I hardly felt like I was watching a movie, but I definitely felt like I was watching Final Fantasy. Boy, is that ever a flip-flop from Spirits Within. The only thing I found to be lacking was the normal depth of FF stories. For a 2 hour movie, Advent Children doesn't cover much in the story department, and what's there is slightly disjointed thanks to the constant jumping around through time to try and show several events happening at the same time. However, I didn't really come to the film for story, and I doubt many others did, either. Advent Children is clearly made for Final Fantasy VII fans who just want to see more of their favorite characters and locations, and for that, the movie is of extremely high production value. The (English) voice acting wasn't anything spectacular, but neither was it something to be ashamed of, and I was shocked at how much the chosen voices sounded like I'd imagined the characters to sound while playing the original game on PS1.

In the end, I found Advent Children to be an enjoyable conclusion to the rather vague ending posed by FF VII despite certain shortcomings. This is definitely not a movie for anyone who's never played the game before, even though the film does a fair job of explaining the bases for its key plot points. It's also not a film that should be watched as a normal film, but rather as pure fan service. Approach Advent Children in the right way, and it's a great experience, but should you have some of the wrong ideas in mind from the get go, I can see how it would be disappointing, too. If I had to give it a single rating, I'd probably say 7.5/10 - Good.

Looking back the battle between sephiroth and cloud was incredibly short and as much as omnislash was great looking they could added more affect to it or work the camera better.

I think dirge of cerberus is even more epic in the sense that it had a bigger threat. Maybe once sephiroth was ressurect, the geostigma got worst and affected not just the children.

Just wish there was more i suppose. Igive it a 7/10 because films shouldnt be mainly fan service but also live up to the original or at least try. I know dirge of cerberus tried but then hard to compare a game to a film